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‘I can’t describe what life been like
since she was taken,’ Miss Button said. ‘The worst times are when I wake
up in the middle of the night. I worry that she’s crying for me, I
wonder that she thinks I just left her. I don’t know what she’s been
told. I don’t know if she thinks I don’t want her and I just left her in
Egypt.

‘The one thing I knew when I got on
that plane [home from Egypt] without her is no matter what it took, no
matter how long it took, I would find Elsa and she would find her life
as it was. She found it very difficult being away from me for any length
of time. I know that she wants to be back home with mummy and I hope
that they do the right thing.’

Desperate: Ms Button has travelled to Egypt several times to try and find her daughter with no success

Elsa disappeared on December 27, 2011,
after her parents, who had separated, took her on holiday to Sharm
el-Sheikh to visit Salama’s family. Salama sneaked her out of their
apartment and texted Miss Button to demand she sign a contract giving up
all parental responsibilities.

Miss Button went to the British
Embassy and the local police for help but was forced to return to the UK
to get legal advice. Meanwhile, Salama also returned to England, where
he had been training in Southampton to be a teacher.

He was detained by police and in
January last year was jailed for contempt of court as he refused to
reveal where he is hiding his daughter. Last week, his continued silence
saw him sentenced to a further 12 months in prison.

Miss Button has been back to Egypt
four times to look for Elsa, who will celebrate her sixth birthday next
Saturday. She has kept her daughter’s bedroom as she left it, with her
unopened Christmas presents still by the fireplace.

Mummy's girl: Elsa is apparently devoted to her mother, who has not seen or heard from her for a year

Stuck: Elsa has been left in Egypt with relatives but without either her father or her mother

‘To snatch Elsa away from me was the
cruellest thing anyone could do,’ she said. ‘For me, the difficulty is
the emptiness of the house... waking up in the morning and expecting to
hear her.’

Miss Button, a consultant at Yorkshire
Building Society, met Salama when he was working at an international
school in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2005. The couple married in Egypt in 2006
and moved to England in 2007 following Elsa’s birth.

They separated in 2009 but continued
to live together in the family home in Leeds for Elsa’s sake until
Salama began a teacher training degree in August 2010.

Distraught: Ms Button has spoken of her distress at living in an empty house without her daughter

Empty: Elsa's Christmas presents are still sitting unwrapped in her bedroom in Leeds

Miss Button agreed in 2011 to go on holiday with him to Egypt so Elsa could see her grandparents.

While they were there, she asked him
to consider a divorce and admitted she had struck up a relationship with
an ex-boyfriend. Furious, Salama tried to make her give up Elsa by
accusing her of adultery – a criminal offence in Egypt.

Miss Button has been prevented from
talking about the case until now because Elsa was made a ward of court,
meaning her identity could not be revealed.

Kate Banerjee of Jones Myers LLP, the
lawyers acting for Miss Button, said: ‘Elsa is without the love and care
of either a mother or father in a country where she doesn’t speak the
language or understand the culture. We appeal to anyone who knows Elsa’s
whereabouts to just pick up the phone and help us return this little
girl to her mother.’

VIDEO APPEAL. Heartwarming home video released by Elsa's family...

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Elsa Salama: Mother's global appeal for safe return of daughter who was snatched by father in Egypt